Jaipur doctor Roman Saini, who cracked AIIMS entrance at 16 and IAS at 22 has quit after just two years in the elite government service.

Saini, at present posted as assistant collector of Jabalpur, has confirmed that he has sent his resignation, which is due for acceptance by the government. He says he wants to focus on Unacademy, his education venture, which offers free tutorials on range of subjects.

The news of Roman Saini's resignation from IAS was first reported in December by a website that covers bureaucracy, Whispers in the corridor. It had stated that he had resigned before the formal completion of his training.

After graduating from AIIMS, Roman Saini cleared the civil services exam in his first attempt in 2013 securing an All India Rank of 18.

He then came to limelight when he started posting video tutorials on how to prepare for civil services. It gained him a huge online following, besides extensive media coverage.

Encouraged by the success, Roman Saini set up Unacademy, an online portal, which provides educational content, along with his school friend Gaurav Munjal.

Roman Saini told The Times of India that he wanted to focus on making quality education accessible.

He says while there is a huge demand for quality education, infrastructure and human resource have been inadequate in meeting it.

"That is why I decided to pursue fulltime the concept of Unacademy," he says.

TOI reports that Roman Saini's parents and brother were not happy with his decision to quit IAS. Even for him it was not an easy move as he had spent two years to prepare for it and two more on probation.

But in the end, idealism and passion seem to have mattered more for Roman Saini.

A resident of Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak, Amarjit Singh, is the first Sikh ever to join the Pakistan army. He joned the Army in 2005 and was recently included in the defence forces on the Wagah border.

The Dawn newspaper quoted Amarjeet Singh saying that he was proud of being a part of the Pakistan army and would be happy to lay down his life for the nation.

A Philadelphia-based writer Stacey Ritzen went viral recently after she posted audio recording of a neighbour having incredibly loud sex.

Stacey Ritzen, who blogs for Uproxx, complains she is frequently disturbed by a noisy neighbour with whom she shares a wall.

The neighbour seems to play loud music when she is not moaning and shrieking.

One afternoon, when Stacey Ritzen was working on her computer, the neighbour got into a mood. The noise started drifting in and became unbearable, prompting Stacey Ritzen to posted a few audio recordings of the neighbour in ecstasy, along with a few tweets.

Bollywood Life described the 150 cuts for a movie as unbelievable. But it may not come as a surprise as the censor board under its current chairman Pahlaj Nihalani has been liberally wielding knife to uphold Indian culture.

Last week, filmmaker Prakash Jha had criticised Nihalani for asking for 50 cuts in his upcoming film "Jai - Gangajal" in order to get a U/A certificate.

Nihalani had reportedly taken offense to even the use of words like 'sala and bastard'.

A screenshot of the video on Dedh Gulli market in Chor Bazaar Mumbai (video below)

January 11, 2016, NewsCrunch

Dedh Gulli in Kamathipura, Mumbai, hosts a market for stolen shoes, which operates only between 4 am and 8 am on Fridays and Sundays.

There are 70 stalls here, which do a roaring business in peddling shoes that are lifted from temples, gurudwaras, churches, mosques, and wedding venues.

Mid Day details the modus operandi of the thieves, the middle men and the hawkers in an interesting report.

The market is very popular with college students who come to buy branded shoes at a fraction of the retail cost.

Wolverine Toe Boot, which costs Rs 18,000 can be picked up for Rs 4,000 here. A Nike Airmax costs just Rs 1,500 when compared to the legal price of Rs 8,000. CAT Men’s leather boots, which retails at Rs 4,000 can be procured here on the sly for Rs 800.

Brands like CAT, Nike, Woodland, Lee Cooper are the most common.

The police say they can’t do much as they people, who lose their shoes, don’t lodge complaint. And, as a hawker points out in the Mid Day report, many policemen themselves comes to buy stolen shoes at Dedh Gulli.

Video: Inside Dedh Gulli market in Mumbai, where stolen shoes are sold (Marathi)

The India Today group pulled off a debating coup on Sunday when they brought together BJP leader Subramanian Swamy and AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi to debate Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute.

Swamy’s address on Ram Janambhoomi seminar at DelhiUniversitylast week had revived the controversy.

Swamy and Owaisi debated both in Hindi fo Aaj Tak and English for India Today.

Both stuck to their known stands on the controversy with Swamy asking Muslims to agree for the Ram Janambhoomi temple without waiting for the Supreme Court verdict and Owaisi insisting on the judicial process.

The long videos are worth a watch as they cover different aspects of the controversy and the bring out sharp differences between the two groups.

Both Swamy and Owaisi supporters claimed victory after the debate. In our opinion, Swamy was looking subdued while Owaisi made his points forcefully.

The footage of Sangeeta thrashing her mother-in-law was recorded on January 5. (video below)

January 12, 2016, NewsCrunch

Uttar Pradesh police have arrested Sangeeta Jain, from Nehtaur, Bijnor, who was caught on camera brutally assaulting her old and disabled mother-in-law, Rajrani Jain.

The footage shared by a social activist Kundan Srivatsava on his Facebook page had gone viral and received extensive media coverage prompting police action.

Sangeeta's husband Sandeep Jain, said he had a suspicion that Sangeeta used to torture his parents in his absence and had installed a CCTV camera in his mother's room to keep an eye on his wife.

Sandeep has filed for divorce and Sangeeta has slapped dowry and domestic violence complaints against him. Sandeep was sent to police custody for a day on January 4 on charges of dowry harassment.

The footage of Sangeeta thrashing her mother-in-law was recorded on January 5. It shows her assaulting the old woman who is unable to resist. She hits her with an object that looks like stone and even tries to strangle her.

Sangeeta now faces an attempt to murde charge.

The incident is similar to another woman Sarita, from Kaushambi, again in UP, who was also caught on CCTV thrashing her mother-in-law in August last year.

Watch: A short kathak performance by Gaurav Sharma - does 105 rounds

The phenomenon of apparently healthy animals drifting to the coast to commit mass suicide has baffled scientists.Twitter pic

January 12, 2016, NewsCrunch

The mass stranding of nearly 100 whales at Tuticorn has grabbed headlines. Fishermen and volunteers are battling valiantly to put them back to the sea.

But the animals are reportedly coming back to the beach to end their lives. The phenomenon of "mass stranding" - groups of distressed whales, dolphins and porpoises coming ashore alive - is poorly understood.

Here is what we know about the strange and tragic phenomenon.

1) Mass stranding has been documented for thousands of years, since Aristotle's times. The frequency is said to be increasing now and the blame is on human activity affecting the oceans.

2) Annually world over 2,000 whales get stranded. More than 1,500 whales have been stranded along the Indian coastline since 1800 till now.

3) The cetacean species, to which these animals belong, is extremely social. The bond that hold groups together are strong enough to supersede the survival instincts of individual animals. Whatever the cause of distress, they feel it collectively and move ashore together.

4) Mass strandings can occur anywhere, but are more frequent in certain parts of the world - Australia, New Zealand and Cape Cod.

5) It has been observed that at certain times of the year, individual species seem to become more vulnerable to mass stranding - Pilot Whales(December), White-sided Dolphins (March), Common Dolphins(January), Risso's Dolphins (November) and Bottlenose Dolphins (December).

6) The biggest single whale stranding event known to science occurred in June 2015 at a remote fjord in southern Chile’s Patagonia. An observation flight discovered over 337 dead sei whales - 305 bodies and 32 skeletons. Scientists are analyzing the event for publication in a scientific journal.

7) In India the most stranding deaths occurred in 1973 when 147 whales got beached.

8) The stranding of individual whales is attributed to natural factors such as rough weather, old age or disease, difficulty in giving birth, hunting too close to shore, or navigation errors.

Rekha was also on stage to give away the Best Actress award to Aishwarya, who had won it for Jazbaa. (Video below)

January 13, 2016, NewsCrunch

Aishwarya Rai created a flutter at the recent Sansui Stardust Awards 2016.function when she addressed veteran actress Rekha as 'maa' on stage.

Rekha was also on stage to give away the Best Actress award to Aishwarya, who had won it for Jazbaa.

After she uttered the 'maa' word all eyes, including cameras, turned to get Amitabh Bachchan's reaction. They were not disappointed as the normally affable senior actor had turned grim.

Since the Bachchan family survived Amitabh's intense affair with Rekha, the actress has been a taboo. All Bachchans try to avoid any contact with Rekha and what Aishwarya did may have come as a surprise.

The cover art highlights the bald head of Jeff Bezos in blue skin tone holding lotus in one hand and Amazon logo on the other.

The illustration accompanies the main story of Fortune’s current international edition, titled “Amazon Invades India.”

It claims to provide the “inside story” of how Bezos plans to conquer the Indian market.

After the Bezos’ Vishnu avatar drew an angry response for offending Hindu sentiments, Murraywas quick to apologise on twitter.

He also issued a statement on Fortune’s website stating that “Neither the artist nor the editors of Fortune had any intention of parodying a particular deity or of offending members of the Hindu faith.”

“It is clear that we erred and for that, we apologize,” he added.

The Fortune cover page has been created by Sydney-based illustrator Nigel Buchanan.

Indian cricketer Dhoi has faced a long legal battle over a similar cover illustration that showed him as Lord Vishnu. Recently, a court in Andhra Pradesh had even issued a warrant to arrest him over the controversy.

Modi feels there are no instant remedies for India's problems and his policy initiatives will take two to three years to bear fruit. Wiki pic

January 14, 2016, NewsCrunch

PM Modi seems to have acknowledged that his honeymoon with voters is long over.

He has reportedly told his confidants that he expects his government's popularity to continue to decline till it rebounds.

K P Nayar, The Telegraph consulting editor make this claim in a recent article - Stuck at the crossroads. Nayar, a respected old school journalist, is known for filing accurate reports based on official but unnamed sources.

Modi thinks his popularity graph started dipping early last year after 9th months in the office. He expects the decline to continue till May 2017.

He reportedly feels there are no instant remedies for India's problems and his policy initiatives will take two to three years to bear fruit.

He will be glad if his forecast comes true as it would give him ample time to prepare for the next general elections.

Nayar does not list the specific initiatives on which Modi is banking on, but identifies foreign policy as one of them.